They seem to have dramatically reduced fuel consumption, but fuel wasn't the issue for the concord the limited number of viable routes where. Going from the Concrods 3550nm range to 4250nm should help with that as it opens up several new routes and longer routes see a more significant drop in travel times.
Fuel prices were absolutely an issue for Concorde. BA struggled immensely with the Arab oil embargo and the per-seat cost for the Concorde shot up into the stratosphere and ticket sales collapsed.
The oil embargo hit the entire industry hard, but Concorde continued operation into 2003. Over time as other aircraft became more efficient the efficiency gap grew much larger but it was still profitable up to Air France Flight 4590.
Why aren't the Chinese and Russians successful at building airliners? International politics aside, they have workable products, so why can't they break into the duopoly.
> they have workable products Not so, not for Russia anyway: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100
So they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over…
And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…
I wonder how much larger the population of people is today (vs Concorde's era) that are willing to pay for these supersonic ticket prices. 3x? 10x?
I do too, but I also don't have a huge amount of experience sitting in an incredibly comfortable first class seat. I imagine I'd get a lot more done than I do in coach. I think if I had a decent internet connection (happening more and more) and comfortable seat I'd happily take a 7/8 hour flight over a 5 hour one in a coach-style seat.
I fly first class a fair bit, and I struggle to get anything done on the plane (in the terminal is fine, though). For me, there's no way to take a good break on a plane. I can't really get up and stretch my legs (unless you try to pace the aisle), and any kind of distraction is going to be on a screen. It is more comfortable than coach, but it's still not really comfortable. Coach is actively uncomfortable, first cla…
Depends on the airline, lots of planes have bars you can walk to.
You don't need to go everywhere, really. Especially not halfway round the world for a vacation.
This reasoning can be used to also say you don’t need to go anywhere outside of your living area. Without removing freedom of mobility, the only way we have to mitigate environmental costs is through price pressures which could be used to fund net neutral technologies.
If you have everything you need in your living area then you don't need to go anywhere else, yeah. In most places you can get everything you need within a 200km radius of where you live, unless you have very particular needs.
I'm glad you considered all possible ways to mitigate the environmental costs of flying. Seems like wasteful supersonic jets aren't one of them?
And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…
They seem to have dramatically reduced fuel consumption, but fuel wasn't the issue for the concord the limited number of viable routes where. Going from the Concrods 3550nm range to 4250nm should help with that as it opens up several new routes and longer routes see a more significant drop in travel times.
Still there are not much other routes you can go supersonic in one flight but trans-atlantic, which Concorde could do.
Trans-Pacific which could have been the big money making route, like LAX to Tokyo, you need to be able to do 4737 nm... which makes the 4250 nm just short to make it.
They would face the same problem the Boeing 2707 team had (or even Lockheed with the L-2000 project), no matter how they tried, too short range for trans-pacific in one Hop. So they would have had to make a stop to Hawaï, but then what's the point if you can take first class in a B777 and make the journey shorter in one subsonic flight.
All other routes would be over land, and there again you can't go supersonic (for time being).
They seem to have dramatically reduced fuel consumption, but fuel wasn't the issue for the concord the limited number of viable routes where. Going from the Concrods 3550nm range to 4250nm should help with that as it opens up several new routes and longer routes see a more significant drop in travel times.
Fuel prices were absolutely an issue for Concorde. BA struggled immensely with the Arab oil embargo and the per-seat cost for the Concorde shot up into the stratosphere and ticket sales collapsed.
At todays Jet 1 A US fuel price of $3.07 per gallon it would cost $108k to fill the Concord. Which holds 120 passengers. That comes out to a cost of $900 per person passenger on a full fight.
If the cost of fuel were double like a few months ago then that cost would be $1,800 per flight.
Compared to a Boeing 737 which has a fuel cost of ~24k at max capacity of 7,878 gallons at todays prices. A passenger limit of 177 and a fuel cost as low as $136.64 per passenger on a full fight.
You don't need to go everywhere, really. Especially not halfway round the world for a vacation.
I completely agree that right now, this is the right mindset. We need to reduce our footprints a lot until we are in better shape as a planet. However, I hope that one day we'll be able to travel as much as we want in a sustainable way. It is a great thing.
The internet tells me that there is only one ocean liner left (Queen Mary 2), which travels only between the UK and the US east coast.
There's only one left because there is no demand for that kind of travel, which is good evidence that people value time over comfort.
There's certainly demand for low-cost ocean voyages as vacations, with over 300 cruise ships in service (and cruise lines generally quite profitable).
It's high-cost, non-vacation, long distance travel/transport where ocean liners were beaten in the 1960s by airliners (and airlines, in contrast, are generally not very profitable).
And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…
I wonder how much larger the population of people is today (vs Concorde's era) that are willing to pay for these supersonic ticket prices. 3x? 10x?
This could be a very important enabler. As you can see in other "luxus" industries, the amount of affluent people on this planet has ballooned. I don't know any numbers, but I got the impression that the private airplane industry had a strong growth in recent years. And flying supersonic with an airline for sure is way cheaper than any private flight.